Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Jesuit, "Sexual Immaturity Of Men Who Entered The Hot-house Seminaries Of The Mid-20th century"

When a good book is finally written about what has happened to the American church in the last decade, the story would begin a hundred years ago when the Catholic church as a specifically American community was coming into its own, with population power centers in the big cities like Philadelphia, Boston and New York, led by a hierarchy that was more political than pastoral setting the patterns - solidifying the structures - that, sometimes to its disadvantage, remain intact today.

Some would begin tin the 5th century and trace all our woes to Saint Augustine's alleged negative attitude toward sex, and then jump to the 10th century imposition of celibacy, which was enforced not to make priests more available to their flocks but to prevent them from passing church property on to their children.

Obviously sexual attitudes - including the exclusion of women from the priesthood and thus from the central leadership; the resulting insulated, all male clubhouse atmosphere of clerical culture; the possible sexual immaturity of men who entered the hot-house seminaries of the mid-20th century; and the apparent increase of openly homosexual seminarians and priests - are relevant to the current crisis. But this crisis is not primarily about sex.

About Me

I am not a Jesuit, nor am I a cleric. I spent about 5 years under the spiritual direction of a Jesuit, 3 of those years in a weekly directed retreat in everyday life. The profound impact that the Society and the Excercises had upon my life, resulted in me, trying to deal with that impact in some way by sharing my view of Jesus Christ with others. My intention is to pull together Jesuitical and Catholic subjects that interest me. I was born on the feast day of St. Paul Miki, S.J.. I am the father of three small children and an infant, I am married to a great wife.